10 Notorious Cyber Criminals Brought to Justice – No. 2

Last week, we investigated the story of Dmitry Olegovich Zubakha, a Russian hacker who breached Boeing’s computer networks and launched a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against Amazon, eBay and Priceline.

Tripwire now continues its series on some of the most notorious cyber criminals brought to justice with Roman Valerevich Seleznev, a Russian hacker who broke into several American retailers’ point-of-sale (PoS) systems and installed malicious software to steal customers’ credit card information.

Between October 2, 2009, and February 22, 2011, Seleznev—who went by the names “Track2,” “Roman Ivanov,” “Ruben Samvelich,” “nCuX,” “Bulba,” “bandysli64,” “smaus,” “Zagreb,” “shmak,” and others online—hacked into the computer networks of a number of small American retail businesses and installed malicious computer code onto PoS terminals in an attempt to steal customers’ payment card numbers.

Among Seleznev’s victims were a city zoo, a jewelry store, and several restaurants and entertainment venues, according to a 2011 indictment.

But these measures did not sway the determination of law enforcement. In the summer of 2014, U.S. federal authorities arrested Seleznev in Maldives, a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.

U.S. law enforcement agents have refused to return Seleznev to Russia.

“This important arrest sends a clear message: despite the increasingly borderless nature of transitional organized crime, the long arm of justice – and this Department – will continue to disrupt and dismantle sophisticated criminal organizations,” Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said in a statement.

Seleznev faces approximately 100 years in prison and close to $1 million in fines, if convicted.